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Farmers optimistic about corn stalk sugar mill plans

A group of Southwestern Ontario farmers are one step closer to building a sugar mill for corn stalks and other plant matter, to help boost their bottom lines and attract more biochemical plants and jobs to the area.

Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC), a Sarnia-based, not-for-profit biochemical technology advocate, has completed a year-long study into 19 tech companies, each with methods of extracting sugar from things like corn stalks (stover), wheat straw and even wood.

“But here in Sarnia we have an abundance of corn stover around now,” Murray McLaughlin, BIC's executive director, said Tuesday.

“So it would make sense to use corn stover as the primary feedstock.”

What the study found, he said, is that three or four existing technologies are viable and ready to go.

The agency is digging into some more data for area farmers — represented by the Cellulosic Sugar Producers Cooperative — interested in backing the mill project that would see the stalk sugar refined and sold to biochemical plants in the area.

Shovels, McLaughlin said, could hit the ground in as little as a year's time. But where exactly and the cost to build aren't clear yet.

“I would say probably in the next month or two you'll hear more on that,” he said.

But, he said, early estimates are the project could create 100 permanent jobs — working in the mill, harvesting and transporting the stalks, etc. — and add $100 million into Ontario's economy.

Moreover, McLaughlin said, the project could encourage more bioindustrial companies like the area's bio-succinic-acid maker BioAmber — which uses corn sugar as its feedstock — to set up shop in the region.